Aided by internet connections that allow datasets to be assembled from disparate sources and cheap computing power to crunch the numbers, economists are more and more often turning to real-world data to complement and test theoretical models.

This trend was documented in a 2013 article from the Journal of Economic Literature...

The ... prevalence of empirical work as determined by the authors’ model has been rising across fields since 1980. The authors note that the empirical turn is not a result of certain more empirical fields overtaking other more theoretical ones, but instead every field becoming more empirically-minded.

Aided by internet connections that allow datasets to be assembled from disparate sources and cheap computing power to crunch the numbers, economists are more and more often turning to real-world data to complement and test theoretical models.

This trend was documented in a 2013 article from the Journal of Economic Literature...

The ... prevalence of empirical work as determined by the authors’ model has been rising across fields since 1980. The authors note that the empirical turn is not a result of certain more empirical fields overtaking other more theoretical ones, but instead every field becoming more empirically-minded.